The present invention relates generally to an automatic channel scanning method and more specifically to a method for automatically searching a frequency range for signal channels in a receiver for digitally modulated signals, and to a receiver for applying such a method.
In a receiver for digitally modulated signals it is desirable to have a fast automatic method for finding the signal channels in a frequency range. However, to receive a signal, the center frequency of the channel, the symbol rate and the modulation type have to be known. In a conventional search method the receiver would try every possible combination of these values. The number of combinations is however immense and therefore this conventional procedure would take an unacceptably long time.
The present invention aims to provide an improved search method wherein the search time is considerably reduced.